365 and 366

For just a moment, in your eyes, I saw

the place my friends and I would take school breaks;

and I was there—and cannot speak the awe

that such a vision in your eyes awakes.

For youth is lost, and years will leave again,

and few can comprehend what now is gone.

To see in thee these sights that were my ken—

‘tis as a wicked curtain closed, withdrawn.

For dreams must die with youth, they always do,

except as favors fate to none but some.

But your eyes, portals to the dreams I knew,

rekindle youth, and all its songs re-strum.

How odd—the schoolyard—for a vision so.

How odd that, there, youth’s visions die and grow.

~~~

1 Nephi 13: 19-37

A poor man held, quite close, a precious stone

and showed it everyone who he did meet,

and shared its bright reflection and its tone

to everyone he met along the street.

But this stone, tho quite precious as it was,

was only part of what it used to be.

A piece that would, a prospector, give pause—

for what was missing which he couldn’t see:

a gem of history—a part, not whole,

but precious still to he who loved it so.

The poor man whose yet hopeful, child-like soul

could love it for its beauty, whole or no.

And he who had the rest of that fine stone,

tho blest, saw not how bright the crystal shone.